


Putting Out Fires (with Gasoline)

by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Community: hp_crossgenfest, Cross-Generation Relationship, Crups (Harry Potter), Gardens & Gardening, HP: EWE, Hung Harry Potter, M/M, Masturbation, Metamorphmagus Sex, Motorcycles, POV Second Person, POV Teddy Lupin, Photography, Slow Burn, Tattoos, Unresolved Sexual Tension, godfather/godson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-12 04:51:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11729856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumosed_quill/pseuds/lq_traintracks
Summary: Teddy stays with Harry for a summer to help him figure out his life, or maybe to figure out his own, or to seduce his godfather, or maybe to fall in love.





	Putting Out Fires (with Gasoline)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic got way out of hand – and I'm so glad it did. I researched bike mechanics and gardening ffs (thanks to __ for the 'ladybird' thing – because English people call ladybugs ladybirds)! Big, huge, throbbing thanks to __ for the beta! Capitu, your prompt took hold of me fiercely. I hope you enjoy these long-winded and reluctant dorks (I've seriously _begged_ them to just get it on for weeks)!  <3 [The title is from the David Bowie song, 'Cat People (Putting Out Fire)'.]

"Hello?" you hike the duffel bag higher onto your shoulder and step into the empty entry hall at Grimmauld Place. You cough and try again. "Harry?"

As you wander into the answering silence, it occurs to you that maybe you've got the wrong date, so you fish out Harry's Owl and check. The first of June is written in his atrocious scrawl, but it's still legible, as are Harry's instructions on how to access the Unplottable house.

You wander around, finding the place dusty as though relegated to disuse. Only the study, the kitchen, and two bedrooms on the second floor appear free from gloom. And Doxies.

When you finally open the back door onto the sunny garden, that's where you find him. He's kneeling in the dirt and tugging at a stubbornly rooted baby Whomping Willow. You wince as it thwacks him on the side of his head.

"Ow! Bloody…" 

He continues to yank on the young trunk, his white t-shirt soaked down the middle of his back and sticking to his skin. His jeans dip, revealing the start of a pair of navy blue pants.

"Bugger, I never should have let Neville plant you," he mutters, wiping his brow with a forearm, gardening gloves mucked up with dirt.

"Is your goal tree murder or are you just trying to move it?" you ask, bag slipping to the ground.

He turns his head, and when Harry sees you, he smiles. "Teddy."

With one smile over his sweaty shoulder, everything you'd hoped you might no longer feel violently resurfaces.

~

You succeed through cooperation (and both magical and hard labour) in getting the tree moved to the side of the garden where, Harry insists, the shade is needed for his Dittany plants and where the willow will also conveniently be out of striking distance.

"I'm relieved it won't come to fisticuffs every time I need to go to the shed," Harry sighs with a weary smile. 

You don't remember his smile being that weary before. But it's been too long since you've seen him; you were barely out of Hogwarts then. Maybe you hadn't been paying close enough attention – even though it feels like all you've done since you were fifteen and you've had the chance to be around Harry is to bloody stare at him.

Somewhere between your arrival and dinner, you meet Pearl, Harry's crup. She comes barrelling up while you're watering Harry's tomatoes, her tongue lolling out the side of her smiling mouth, tails wagging in opposite directions, and nearly knocks you over into the dirt.

"Still a puppy," Harry explains. "She hasn't found her brakes yet."

"Brakes?" you ask, petting Pearl until she spots a gnome across the garden and once again bolts.

"Oh, um, her _Locomotor Mortis_ , I guess."

You help Harry until evening sets in, and Merlin's tits does he need it. Harry, it turns out, is a really crap gardener, and you find yourself following in his wake of mistakes and quietly correcting them as you go. It's sort of nice to find something about him that's fundamentally un-reverable – but even this is endearing.

It would really help if he weren't just as fit as you remembered and probably even more so. Victoire's words of questionable wisdom come back to you as you watch the muscles in Harry's arms bunch while he pulls weeds:

_"You're never going to get what you want."_

And the impossible arrogance of your reply:

_"Watch me."_

You hadn't believed it even as you said it – you're a Hufflepuff, not a Slytherin, though you've always felt the Hat hesitated an awfully long time – and now Victoire's wisdom seems less questionable. He's bloody Harry Potter. And you’re his twenty-two year-old godson, fresh off a couple seasons tending dragons, your only real accomplishments a few odd jobs, a lack of true purpose, and a lightning fast refractory period. You don't even want to count how many of those have been post-wank over _him_.

Fucking hell, it's only the first day of your summer here and you're already having doubts.

But then Harry turns to you. He lifts the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face, unselfconsciously showing you his tight stomach, the dark hair trailing down. And then he smiles at you. "I'm hungry. Are you hungry?"

You take a moment to gulp down the copious drool. You tell him, "Starving," and you know, torture though it is, there's nowhere else you'd rather be.

~

"Sorry I put you to work right when you first arrived," Harry says over the remains of your supper, dabbing his mouth with a napkin.

"You didn't. I just sort of jumped in," you assure him. "How long have you been gardening, Harry?"

"Too long to be so horrific at it." He leans back, replete. "The turnips alone… Merlin, they're a disaster."

"No, they're just…" You search for a word. "…misguided."

He snorts. "That's very diplomatic of you. You can tell me the truth, Teddy."

Merlin, the truth…

_I want you on top of me. How's that?_

"Yeah, okay, they're terrible." You give him an apologetic smile.

He sighs. "I know. I think I've become too susceptible to suggestion."

You lean your forearms on the table. "What do you mean? Whose?"

"Well, you know, Neville had the bright idea I should take up Herbology. Ron thought I should try-out for Quidditch teams, but Merlin, I'm thirty-nine. It's a little late for that, I'd say."

"Why? You're… in shape." You fight the urge to openly check him out, biting your lip the while.

He just rolls his eyes. "They mean well," he tells you, bypassing your compliment.

You remember how delighted the Weasleys were when you told them of your plans to stay with Harry for the summer. You remember the weirdly shared looks, the concern etched into the corners of their mouths, and you start to readjust your thinking that their concern was for you and your future. It seems they may have had someone else on their minds.

"So, I've hardly seen you since you left Hogwarts," Harry says, changing the subject less-than-deftly. "I hear you got an Outstanding in Defence? On your NEWTs?"

"Merlin, that was four years ago. But yeah. Though I had help," you're quick to inform him. "Did you not hear that part?"

He shakes his head, now leaning forward too, intrigued.

You slant him a smile. "Well, apparently back in your day…"

"My day, huh?"

"Yeah, you know, during the war."

"Ah. Go on."

"In your fifth year, when you taught all those other kids? Dumbledore's Army?"

"Yeah?"

"I guess one of them… Penny Bell's aunt—"

"Katie?"

"Yeah, well she took all these notes on what you taught them. Penny let me copy them. That's how I aced my Defence NEWT."

He leans back, blinks. "Huh," he says. "You know, you could have just asked me."

You feel yourself blushing and send a whisper of magic to your cheeks to counteract it. "Sorry."

"No." He frowns. "No, I don't mean that, I just… Well, you can always come to me, Teddy. About anything you want."

_Anything you want…_

You drop your gaze from the tender way he's looking at you. "Should have used your help with Transfiguration more than anything," you confess.

He gives a little laugh. "Transfiguration? Really?"

The humour of it – that you're a metamorphmagus who can't do Transfiguration – has never escaped you, and you lift your chagrined gaze once more to share in Harry's mirth. "I know, right? Seems changing anything outside my own skin is a bit of a problem. I came away with an Acceptable."

He shakes his head. "They wouldn't let you just transfigure yourself, I suppose."

"No, I tried that."

He laughs, the sound happy. It's not something you've heard from him in a long while, and it warms you. You may not be able – morally or actually – to seduce your godfather, but it's certainly now your goal to make him laugh like that again.

"I like the cobalt," he says now, and, reflexively, you touch your hair.

The last time Victoire visited the dragon ranch, she'd insisted you should let the front flop down while she promptly took a wand to the back and got to shearing. Not that you can't change it anytime you please, but hairdressing is one of her gifts, and frankly, since you came out to her, she's done nothing but want to fix you up for prospective male suitors. And she's not bad at it, if the looks – and the blokes you've pulled – have been anything to go by.

It thrills you that now Harry has looked too.

Not that it means the same thing of course. The important thing is that he noticed at all.

"Thanks." You don't waste energy fighting the blush this time. Not with the warm way Harry responds, his intense eyes shimmering at you from behind his glasses.

"It suits you," he says softly.

There's a vibrating moment ripe with potential where you think your magic may just burst out of your skin, surge across the table, and do dirty things to him independent of your body and your ability to stop it. Far from stopping it, you'd join it. You'd crawl over the table, letting dishes crash to the floor, and you'd kiss him. He'd be too shocked not to let you at first, and you'd take advantage, your tongue gently touching his bottom lip, and then on his inhale to protest, dipping into his mouth…

Harry clears his throat. "Take your plate?"

Recovering slightly from the images in your head, you say, "You cooked, I should get the dishes." You reach out to do just that, and for a moment, your hand covers his on his plate, but he just smiles at you and gently extricates himself.

"How about you throw a ball for Pearl while I clean up?"

"Sure," you say as he clatters the plates into the sink and sends a jet of soap at them with his wand.

You pat your thigh and call for Harry's crup, and she comes careening down the stairs, all huge feet on completely wacky legs. She heads straight for the door to the garden, snatching her ball up in her mouth on the way. You reach down and tousle her ears before you open the door to let her go flying out.

It's relaxing, almost therapeutic, and you throw the ball into dusk without realising. Harry's _Lumos Maxima_ startles you.

"Thanks. I didn't realise how dark it had gotten already." You throw the ball again, and Pearl runs for it like it's the first throw and not the fiftieth. 

"Do you need anything? Before I go upstairs?" he asks.

Pearl has yet again dropped the ball at your feet, looking up at you like you hold the keys to unlocking every truth.

"We're good."

"Well, you know where I'll be," he says. 

Merlin, yes you do. In his bed, in only a pair of sleep trousers, his glasses slipped lazily down his nose as he reads, this one giddy muscle in his chest twitching a bit when he moves his arm to turn a page of his book…

"Yep." You throw the ball. "Thanks, Harry." Then before he can disappear back into the glow of the house, you call out, "Thank you for letting me stay here and, you know… figure stuff out."

You're not sure why you say it. The last thing you feel like doing is facing the fact that you don't know what you want to do with your life. And you certainly don't want to bring unwanted attention to the fact that Harry seems sandwiched into the same boat. But as much as he, for the most part, makes you comfortable, sometimes Harry really makes you nervous too.

He looks torn for a moment, and you wish you could see his eyes better, but the magical light reflects off his glasses, and all you know is that he hesitates with his hand on the doorknob.

"It's my pleasure," he says finally. "Goodnight, Teddy."

"Night, Harry."

He disappears inside, and Pearl, panting, drops a slobbery ball at your feet.

~

 

You sleep well. In fact, not having to set your wand to wake up before dawn and make sure the yearlings are fed means you sleep longer than you intend, rolling out of bed with a grimace because Pearl's found her way in and has licked your hand.

You sling on jeans and a t-shirt, figuring on meeting Harry in the kitchen and helping with breakfast. But when you go downstairs it's to find food and coffee under a stasis charm and a note propped against your steaming mug.

_Outside with the misguided turnips. Enjoy breakfast. You don't have to help today if you don't want to. Could do something fun instead._

_H._

You stuff some eggs, bacon, and a few bites of toast, guzzling your coffee. You pat your leg once Pearl's had her fill as well. "C'mon, girl."

The sun shines even more brightly today, and it feels like it's going to be hot by noon, which may explain Harry's early start. You spot him crouched with the aforementioned turnips and make your way over, forgetting momentarily about the Whomping Willow.

"Whoa!" You duck quickly, side-stepping its next assault handily. "Why the fuck did you agree to this again?" you ask, too late forgetting to watch your rude mouth.

Harry seems not to mind though, just turning and giving you a sardonic smile. "Nostalgia maybe," he says. "Neville thinks they make good security."

"Yeah, against guests."

It occurs to you belatedly that this might sound like a judgement of his hermetic lifestyle, which you hadn't intended, but he doesn't seem to take it as such since he hasn't ceased smiling in your direction.

"How can I help?" You set your hands on your hips as he falls onto his arse with a groan.

"Merlin, how _can't_ you help?" Harry shakes his head, observing the sad state of his turnips' greens.

"Well, to start," you tell him, "they ought to be getting full sun. I'd trim back your hedges there." 

"Huh," he grunts appreciatively. 

Though truthfully, this is information privy to most second year Herbology students, so the fact that he doesn't know is both boggling and unaccountably lovely in your admittedly smitten opinion. 

"Anything else?" he asks.

You crouch down next to him and finger one of the leaves. "You seem to have an aphid problem. You might want to invest in ladybirds as well."

"Ladybirds. Really," he muses.

You smile. "Yeah. They'll eat your aphids for you. And then I think your turnips might actually be salvageable." 

He looks pleased. 

"So do you want to keep pulling these weeds while I get started on your hedges?" you ask.

"Sounds like a plan," he says. But when you go to stand, he stops you, taking your hand and pulling you back down. "Hold on…"

Your breath goes short at the strength and solidity of his touch, the way his hand grasps yours and how his fingers crawl up to encircle your wrist instead… at the way he's pulled you in, how he's leaning close, how he reaches up with his other hand and gently threads his fingers into your hair. You can't even bring yourself to stifle the full-body shiver at the intimate touch and the shocking idea that, for whatever reason, he's decided to kiss you, before he…

"There," he says. "You had Wiggentree fluff in your hair." 

"Oh," you breathe stupidly. He's still quite close. Close enough that you watch the lines at the corners of his eyes wrinkle when he smiles at you. He blows the piece of errant fluff from his fingers and into the breeze, like a child making a wish. His other hand still warms your wrist in his loose grip, and you feel your pulse banging against in the soft cage of his hand. Following a pull that feels like _Imperio_ , your gaze falls to Harry's lips as they part and, slowly, he licks them.

In the next instant, his hand is gone, and he's moved back and away. "My tree's molting," he says, rubbing his hands on the thighs of his jeans and then pulling his gloves on.

"What?"

He glances at you. "My Wiggentree." He starts yanking at weeds.

"Oh. Yeah. Right. Well, um… I'll just be getting to those hedges then. So yeah."

"Yep," he says brightly, even as he snares a weed and rips it violently from the soil.

You're grateful he's not watching you walk away as not even your abilities to modify yourself can rectify the effect he's had on your cock.

~

You work separately the rest of the day, but nothing seems to distract you long from lascivious thoughts about him or stolen looks while he gulps water and it spills down his chin, his neck, soaking his shirt…

By evening, it's a relief to say goodnight and flee to your room. Three privacy charms employed with a shaky wand, and you've got your pants ripped down, your fist flying on your cock until you come seconds later on a ragged groan.

Twice more in thirty minutes and you finally fall asleep.

The next day begins the same as the day before.

"Ugh, Pearl!" You wipe your maligned hand on the covers and rise from your bed stretching.

Today, though, you find Harry not in the garden or the kitchen but in his study, frowning at the _Daily Prophet_.

"Hey," he says distractedly but then raises his gaze and smiles at you. "Morning. How did you sleep?"

"Good," you say. _After three rounds of wanking my dick sore._

"I was thinking maybe today we could take a trip to Diagon Alley," he says brightly. "Maybe invest in some ladybirds. Though for the life of me, I can't think who would sell ladybirds. I mean, Slug and Jiggers? They'd probably sell dead ones, which is sort of morbid." He winces.

"Why don't we just check on the internet?" you suggest.

He gives you a funny look.

"Well, it's just that ladybirds are everywhere. They're not unique to the magical world. So, I'd think just searching out some gardening shops in London, we could easily find—"

"I didn't think you were too keen on Muggle stuff," Harry says.

You sit on the sofa with him and belatedly notice the plate of scones and teapot set out on the table. You pick up a scone and take a bite. "Why'd you think that?" you say around your bite.

"I suppose because you didn't know what brakes are." Harry shrugs.

You wave your scone. "Oh, they're on cars. I'd just forgotten. I earned an Exceeds Expectations in Muggle Studies actually. I know all about Muggle music, culture, technology… I've been on the internet on several occasions."

Harry seems to try to subvert a smirk and fails. "For Muggle porn?"

A blush rockets to your cheeks, and you go about finishing your bite of scone to buy time. Because, in fact… well, yes.

"You're twenty-two. I'd expect nothing less." He sips his tea around the continued smirking.

"And thirty-nine year-olds have no use for pornography, I take it?" It's out before you can stop yourself, and your stomach goes tight when you see that register, his own cheeks pinking. 

Harry shoots you a loaded look with just the edge of a warning behind his eyes, though he's a bit chagrined as well.

"You were the one to bring it up," you can't help but say.

He clears his throat. "Anyway."

"Yes, ladybirds. Internet."

"You know, Hermione has an internet connection," he says.

"Really? I thought we'd have to find a Muggle place. I mean, rigging a telly to work is one thing, but… the internet? I've never heard of a witch or wizard being able to dampen or rechannel magic enough to set that up."

"It has been noted that Hermione Granger is the brightest witch of her age," Harry says with a grin. "I don't actually know how she's done it, only that she has. I'm sure she could look it up for us."

"Think she set it up for the porn?" you can't help but ask.

Harry laughs. "Shut it."

You feel a tingle of excitement up your spine at the way he's looking at you.

But then, "Oh, fuck. Actually, I already told Victoire I'd meet her today," you tell him reluctantly.

"That's fine. I can manage going to Hermione's and figuring out the ladybird thing on my own."

You finish your scone. "Okay then. I'm going to hop in the shower."

"Sure," he says. "Have a good time. Out," he blurts. "I meant have a good time out today, not…" He gestures in the direction of the second floor. "Merlin. Just… have a nice time out with your girlfriend." He makes a show of cleaning up breakfast.

"Harry," you say and wait until he's turned to look at you. "She's not my girlfriend."

You make sure to catch his gaze and put as much meaning into your steady look as you can. 

He swallows. "Oh. Okay. I thought…"

"You thought wrong." And then, because you thought he knew – because you've known about _him_ for a long time, even though he's never come out to you: "She's not my type, Harry."

He blinks at you, and you don't know if he's got your meaning or not. It seems important to have said it nonetheless. You give him a small smile. "Have a good day yourself." You turn to head up the stairs, your magic thrumming beneath the surface of your skin. 

Somehow you keep from wanking until you're actually _in_ the shower. But it's only seconds of having stepped under the spray that you're groaning his name, your cock in the blur of your hand, and you come so hard the stars exploding behind your closed eyes momentarily obliterate the image of him in your mind.

~

You spend the day with Victoire, skulking about in Hogsmeade like old times and watching her make frivolous purchases. When she asks about Harry, you change the subject, but that just earns you a look.

"I'm wanking a lot," you say by way of explanation.

She rolls her eyes. "What the bloody hell else is new?"

You draw your wand and send her a mild Stinger, so she punches you in the arm.

It's night when you part ways at the Three Broomsticks Floo.

Back at Grimmauld, Harry is nowhere to be found, which you're coming to expect. He's outdoors more than he's in, you're realising. So you head out into the garden to find balls of _Lumos_ hanging over his turnips, presumably so you can see that he's successfully obtained the ladybirds. Harry himself is not there.

There's a light on in his shed, and you hear a dull bang before his shadow obliterates the warm glow of the doorway. He casts _Nox_ and shuts the shed door, startling a little when he turns and sees you standing there in the dim light.

"Fuck," he breathes, drawing an inhale for a self-deprecating laugh. 

"Sorry."

"No," he says. "I was just about a million miles away. I'm glad you're home."

The word 'home' settles on your shoulders like a cloak, something you could wear quite comfortably if you didn't think you'd die of wanking eventually were that the case.

 _Teddy Lupin, struck dead in his prime; he wanked too much._ It's a terrible if potentially fitting headline-slash-headstone.

"Did you see the ladybirds?" Harry asks, and as he approaches you notice a streak of near-black grease smeared up his arm.

"Oh, yes," you say, shaking yourself. "I think they'll help."

"Are you hungry or do I have time to take a shower before we eat?"

You gulp. "I won't expire." Though you think you just might.

He smiles at you, and as he passes to go inside, he reaches up, wraps a hand around the back of your neck, and squeezes. It's intimate, his palm hot, fingers callused, thumb brushing briefly over the pulse by your swallowing throat. You inhale the metallic scent on his skin, unfamiliar with notes of dirt, heat, and machine. It's strangely appealing, attractive, and you want to lean into his touch. 

It happens so fast, his body in constant motion as he passes, and in just an instant, he's gone, striding to the house, whistling for Pearl who gallops over and follows.

It's only an instant. But it nearly drops you to your knees.

~

You wind up in a half-doze on the sofa in the study, coming awake around midnight to the realisation Harry's gone up to bed and left the telly on low. He's also slung a light blanket around you and tucked it in against your body to guard against it slipping to the floor. He could have used a Sticking charm, but you feel no traces of magic and it occurs to you that he simply used his hands.

A yawn works its way through your stretching body as the blanket falls to your waist. You reach for your wand and turn off the television. You're rising to take yourself to your room when the photo in the _Prophet_ flashes at you from underneath the book Harry'd tossed on top of it. You move the book to find the paper open to a short article announcing the engagement of Dean Thomas and Ginevra Weasley, their smiling faces luminous. You watch Dean turn his head and gaze at her before pressing a kiss to her temple, and then the scene repeats before going still.

Below the blurb is a picture of Harry. You frown and bring the paper closer to adjust your bleary eyes to the small print. There's a short passage – because apparently they just couldn't resist – speculating on Harry's reaction to the match of his longtime ex-girlfriend with his close friend. There's insinuation of jealousy with the additional wild guesses at why Harry is still unmarried and indeed has not been seen with anyone of late at all. They write about the toll the war must have taken, how his quitting the Auror training program all those years ago had shocked the wizarding world – as if he owed it to anyone; as if he never had a choice – and that's when you feel yourself gritting your teeth so hard your jaw aches. Without finishing what could only be called an article if you're being extraordinarily forgiving, you crumple the paper into a ball and throw it into the fireplace's grate.

How dare they? How dare they reduce Harry Potter to a list of pities and their asinine attempts at diagnosing the ailment he calls his life? 

"Fuckers," you hiss. And then you make a thrashing slice with your wand and _Confringo_ the paper to ashes.

You sigh, shoving your wand into the back of the waistband of your jeans, and run your hands through your hair. It's not fair to him. It's not fair to him at all. And yet…

Haven't you worried about the same things? Isn't that why the Weasley clan is so cheered by your presence in his house? 

It fuels your anger still more to consider that the _Prophet_ , ignorant and cruel fucks though they are, might actually have a small percentage of a point. It's not as much the erroneousness that's the issue but the blatant entitlement with which they feel free to write about him. You're only glad that they haven't yet touched on the whole queer thing. The least they can do is give Harry space to come out on his own. Maybe the wizarding world's latent homophobia works in his favour a bit. After all, how could the great and powerful Harry Potter, the Saviour himself, be gay? It's unthinkable.

You roll your eyes, feeling fatigue return with the exit of your ire. You douse the lights until only your _Lumos_ remains and then trudge upstairs to your room.

You're stripping off your shirt when you notice the light coming through your window from outside. Frowning, you edge closer and see that it's coming from the shed. As you watch, his shadow crosses in front of the light, and then, after a moment more, crosses back.

You lean your hip against the windowsill, looking down into the dark garden and at the steady golden glow from the shed. You trace your finger over the outline of the doorway, like the calm steadiness of a candle's determined flame under your fingertip, until his shadow passes over and pinches the light from the smoldering wick once more.

~

The next day you're both back in the garden. You always did enjoy Herbology, being outdoors, working with your hands. And being around Harry all day is nothing you'd ever complain about. But you find yourself glancing at the shed and wondering what he's got in there that seems to draw him out on nights when something's bothering him.

At dinner, you ask.

"You're out there a lot," you say, done with your plate but still nursing the bottle of beer you've not yet finished off. "The shed," you specify at his look of confusion.

"Oh. Yeah, I suppose so."

You give him a moment to elaborate, and when he doesn't, you consider just letting it drop. But curiosity has always been a bit of an issue with you, so you gently prod. "Is it private, what's in there?"

Harry looks like he's considering what you've said, that perhaps he never thought of it that way but that maybe you've hit on a truth. He returns his gaze to yours. "Not from you."

You look at one another for a moment, an invisible and subtle magic working its way back and forth, sewing the space between you into a loose weave. "Will you take me out there, Harry?"

You weren't completely ignorant of the implication of those exact words when you said them, but aloud they seem to convey still more in a take-me-out-behind-your-shed-and-do-me way. His throat moves as he swallows, but he nods as though nothing but innocence has been exchanged. "Sure," he says. "Now?"

"Why not?"

He nods, giving it some thought first. "Let's go."

He bypasses the small doorway and instead throws open the larger garage door which rumbles as it moves up and over its casters. Harry lights the shed, and as he steps inside, you follow. A few brooms line the back wall, and some gardening equipment frames the space, but the middle of the room is relegated to a grey tarp and whatever's underneath. Harry approaches it, and as he whisks the tarp up and away, he reveals a large black motorcycle resting on its kickstand. 

"Wow," you breathe. "Where did you—?"

"It was my godfather's. Sirius Black." 

"Just like the house," you muse, stepping forward.

Harry's hand lies possessively on the seat, but he gestures to you, a small smile lighting his face. "Go ahead."

You run your fingers over the solid weight of it, the sleek metal and stiff rubber of the tires.

"It used to have a sidecar," he explains. "But I removed it a long time ago."

"Does it run?" you ask.

"Not in a while." Harry sighs, hand stroking in a reassuring caress along the leather. "It spent several years under the tarp, and I only just started to work on it again…" He shrugs. "A couple months ago. It's stupid maybe, but I'm trying to fix it without magic." He looks down, and you see something that borders on shame, something wholly unaccountable in your opinion.

"Harry," you say, and he raises such unsure eyes to you that you just want to pull him close and hold him. "I think it's bloody fantastic."

You see the uncertainty break into hope and a sort of shy-looking happiness. He drops his gaze, shrugs again, but this time no words surface.

"Could I, maybe sometime…" you start and then falter.

He meets your gaze again and flashes a little smile. "I'd like that, Teddy." His smile becomes a smirk. "I can show you where the brakes are."

You meet his smile, this glimpse of unsteady joy, with your own. And you know that no brakes, no _Locomotor Mortis_ , can stop where you're headed.

~

It starts with a tutorial on the parts: ignition switch, hand clutch, gas tank, exhaust pipes to muffler, rubber fork boots to spring forks. Fender to fender, engine to, yes, brakes. Harry takes you on a guided tour of this still and silent machine like he's walking you around a cathedral and naming saints.

It's with some trepidation that you ask, "Can I sit on it?"

He smiles though, a real smile. "Sure." 

Hands on hips, he watches you grasp the handle bar, throw a leg over, and then ease your arse onto the seat. You adjust your grip, both hands now, and feel how the bike seems to conform to your weight and the V of your legs. If you didn't know better, you'd assume there was magic involved, but Harry's already made it clear it hasn't been touched by a wand in probably decades.

You ease your palms over the grips, leaning slightly forward, and slant him a glance only to find Harry looking at you with what could easily be mistaken for sexual interest, a sort of barely contained naked lust. He's not looking at your face but your body, gaze roaming in a way that has your skin alight under every movement of his appraisal.

You clear your throat and watch him startle a touch. You flick your hair back. "So," you say, "how do I look?" You're afraid he may be able to hear the wild rampaging of your heart even several feet away.

Harry swallows, licks his lips and drops his gaze, toeing at a grease stain on the floor. "Er, good," he says.

"Yeah?"

He meets your gaze now with something shuttered in his own. "Sure. Like you belong there." His smile is stiff.

He starts cleaning up, clearly intending to depart for the house soon, so you take his cue and unseat yourself, wiping your hands on your jeans. You hope he can't tell you're half hard just from how he was checking you out. If that was even what he was doing. You can't help the ecstatic flare of hope that it was.

"Well, I'm, uh, I'm tired," you say. "Think I'll go ahead and go to bed."

"Okay," he says, still fiddling with some random piece of equipment before setting it back on a shelf and picking up another.

You're at the garage door when he calls for you.

"Hey, Teddy."

"Hm?"

"What if tomorrow I teach you about the engine?"

You'd been nervous that he might not allow you back again, and so the invitation loosens your muscles and your smile. "That'd be great."

He smiles at you in return. "Good," he says. "Night, Teddy."

"Goodnight."

You leave him there in the bright room and start back on the garden path, hearing the tarp unfurl as he covers the bike up once more for the night.

~

True to his word, Harry shows you the engine the next day. The day after that, it's the starter pedal, foot gear shift, and ignition circuit breaker. After that, it's everything having to do with the brakes. And none of it is like Muggle Studies class. It's _Harry_ , and he's not just interested, he becomes absorbed, and to your surprise, so do you. 

You still help with the gardening, and some days he insists you do something 'more fun', although you try to tell him that being around him _is_ fun for you, despite his handwaving at you and scoffing. Harry seems to be under the delusion that you need company your own age. And alright, maybe he's not entirely wrong about that – and you placate him by meeting friends here and there – but you know he vastly underestimates your desire to be around him and how engaged you've become with not only the specifics of things like the health of his turnips, growth of the Whomping Willow, and learning about bike mechanics, but also with the generalities of his life and how he lives it.

In what you consider a stunning double standard, you watch him stick close to Grimmauld except for emergency runs to Tesco when all that's left are the butts of the bread loaf and stale tea. Owled invitations from Weasleys, from Lovegoods, from so many others, pile up silently, increasingly unstable stacks of hope, only to be continually ignored (rather than thrown in the bin) out of what you think could be the weight of Harry's irrational guilt. And you observe from June into July that Harry's attendance out in the world at large has diminished to only what he considers necessary.

One night as you're preparing to go out yourself, you stop on your way to the Floo, walk over to where he's sitting on the sofa reading, and plop down next to him. 

"Hey," he says, glasses slipping down his nose in that way that has you yearning to kiss him. Instead you elbow him gently in the ribs. "Go to Ron and Hermione's," you say. "Will you? For me?"

The last has him sighing, a frustrated frown not quite masking the fact that he clearly finds you endearing. "Why must you be wise? What's that about anyway?"

"It's about that I care for you, Harry."

His lashes flutter, his gaze no longer meeting yours.

"And so do they," you remind him.

He sighs again, nudging his glasses up with a finger. "Fine."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Get out of here, smartarse."

You elbow him in the ribs again, this time a bit harder, and he reaches to swat what might have been your leg, had you not moved to rise from the sofa. As it stands, his open hand connects with your arse instead.

A surprised and delighted laugh escapes you.

"I— I didn't—" he stutters. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," you say, turning a smile on him with what you hope is just enough suggestion to encourage him and not enough to scare him into withdrawing from you completely. "Have a nice night, Harry."

He clears his throat. "Yes, you too."

He looks like he might just burst into flames right there, so you take pity, throw down some Floo powder, and let yourself be whirled away.

~

You might not have ever noticed the photos had you not walked in on him hanging one a few days later. You're lured in from garden work by Harry's superior cooling charms and a need for lemonade. You gulp some down and head upstairs, holding the sweating glass against your forehead. You find him in the study, adjusting the frame of a photo on the wall and then stepping back to observe.

It takes a moment to realise the bloke in the photo happens to be you.

"Bloody hell. Did you take that, Harry?"

He turns a smile on you. "Yeah."

You walk closer. It's a photo of you digging the hole to replant his Whomping Willow. You've got the sleeves of your t-shirt rolled up, and sweat shines on your arms. You plunge a shovel into the ground, stomp on it, and then pry out the dirt, tossing it to the side. You wipe your brow, fling your hair back, and the picture reloops to start the sequence again.

You step up beside Harry. "That was the first day, wasn't it?"

"Yep."

"Do you have others?"

He shrugs. "A few. It's sort of a hobby, I guess."

"Do you have better ones than me just digging a hole?"

He looks at your profile. "What's so wrong with it?"

"I— Well, it's just not all that… photogenic," you tell him, even as you find it sort of mesmerising to watch.

"I disagree," he says and then declines to give any reason why.

You itch to ask. Does he like watching you work? Is it the sweat rolling down your neck? Is it the way you move that he likes? What about that moment did he want to preserve? The first day of his godson's summer hols? Or the stolen moment of watching your effort when you didn't realise he was observing you? Or something else?

As you look at it, you have to admit that the composition is really good. It's black and white, and the way Harry's taken the photo enhances the play between how the sunlight strikes your body and the shadows encroaching from the other side. It's a simple act, the shovelling, but there's something about it that feels intimate and engrossing.

"You're really good, Harry," you can't help telling him.

"It's just a hobby," he repeats.

"I'd like to see the others. Sometime," you say.

He inflicts upon you that same shy smile you saw out in the shed that first night he introduced you to the bike. He sighs. "I could use some of that lemonade."

You follow him back to the kitchen with only a scant glance back at the photo of yourself now taking up residence on his study wall.

~

Over the next week or so, several other pictures make their way onto walls or propped on side tables. He's taken some of his friends, Ron and Hermione in particular, some of Weasley Quidditch matches which you realise must be from months if not years ago since you know Harry hasn't been to the Burrow in some time. 

And there are several more of you.

On the table by the study window, he's put up a photo of you holding out a finger for a ladybird to alight. As it does, you smile. In the next moment, it takes flight again. You think you look like a sappy ponce in it but don't share that opinion with Harry.

He starts to bring the camera out into the open now too in order to take your photo while you're aware. Working on the bike one evening, you turn to find him aiming and focusing the lens. Instinct makes you lift a hand like you're shunning the reporters you know dogged him in his youth. But with his, "Oh come on," you relent and let him snap the shot as you lean your arse back on the bike and cross grease-smeared arms, smirking at him.

He flashes you a smile. "That's a good one."

You think he must have lied, though, since you don't see it go up anywhere after the fact.

He takes shots of you playing with Pearl, tossing what he teaches you is called a 'Frisbee'. When at first glimpse of the thing you rolled it across the ground for Pearl to chase, Harry literally fell to the grass laughing. He showed you how it was to be thrown rather than rolled and then proceeded to snap shot after shot of Pearl leaping into the air to try to bring it down. Those end up as a playful triptych over the fireplace mantle.

Over dinner one night, two pints in your belly and your head just slightly abuzz, you lean your chin on your hand and observe, "You have a lot of hobbies, Harry."

He shrugs, his own pint almost to his lips. "I suppose."

"Do you have a favourite?"

He takes a sip. "Whichever one I happen to be doing with you."

The compliment sends a feeling of effervescence through your veins. It's nothing you'd expected, and it stops in its tracks whatever conversation you might have had otherwise.

He clears his throat. "Bike?"

You finish your beer. "Absolutely."

The night is a warm one, but there's a soft breeze blowing through the garage door as he sets about removing the tarp. "I thought I'd show you how to change the oil this time," he says. "It might actually be rideable once we do."

"Sounds good," you say, though that fizzy feeling still makes its way just under your skin. The lingering heat from the day has you agitated too and it's all you can do not to adjust your already slightly swollen cock in your jeans.

Harry shows you all the components, pointing to this and that and relaying the order of what you need to do and why. It's more difficult than usual to concentrate however, and you find yourself asking him to repeat himself or clarify his instructions here and there. You find yourself much more concerned with how his red t-shirt stretches over his biceps when he reaches here… how he unintentionally shows you the waistband of his black pants when he squats to point out such-and-such.

Finally, he gets to the doing, and you watch as he tries to show you the first bolt you need to loosen. "See it?" he says, but as you lean down, you can't quite make out where his fingers disappear beneath the shift rod.

"Here," he amends and now lies on the ground on his back. "It's a tricky little bugger, but if you look just there…"

You kneel and lean over, but the bloody thing is impossible to spot, so you brace on one hand and lean down still more.

"Can you see it?" he asks.

"I just—" You scoot your hand forward, only now realising it's between Harry's spread legs as your wrist bumps up against the soft denim right where his bollocks rest. You freeze – and in your frozen state, you sense that Harry, too, is frozen. No one seems to even be breathing anymore. There's not even a breeze. You can't help yourself and glance down at where your arm is nudging Harry in the balls. Maybe it's your imagination, but you think the flies of his jeans may be a little strained. As you watch, any question of that quickly bleeds away. Because Harry is most definitely going hard beneath your gaze. Very, very hard. Which is obvious, because Harry also happens to be, you're noticing, very, _very_ big.

You swallow. Your gaze darts back to his face. He's looking at you, his eyes a little wide before he blinks. You stare at each other, not moving. He's not moving. And when you realise that he's not moving, you bite your lip, inhale, and just ever-so-subtly move your hand so that you're pressed even tighter up against his groin. Harry shudders slightly, just the tiniest bit. You could easily convince yourself it never happened. But still, he doesn't move away.

You lick your lips and lean down over him, blinking up to where his fingers still clench around the bolt. "So that's it there?" you ask as his balls practically throb against your arm in time with his heavy pulse.

He clears his throat. "Er, yeah. That's it. There."

"Huh," you manage brilliantly, turning your hand just slightly and leaning forward still further to feel the hardening of his thick cock along your forearm. You're now ragingly hard yourself, and it would be so very easy to just ease yourself down between his legs and rock to a quick finish. "So you just… turn it?"

"Yeah, just like…" You make a show of staying to watch Harry twist a bolt free as though it's not the easiest fucking thing to do on the planet. You hear him swallow, close. Kissably close. It's really pushing it to stay here long enough that he's worked the bolt completely free, but you do. It's only when it drops into his waiting palm that you start to ease back from hovering on top of him, finally removing your lucky hand from between his legs.

"Fascinating," you declare a bit breathlessly. "I'm a little thirsty though, so I think I'll…" You jerk your thumb toward the house.

"I'll take a water when you come back," he adds, the relief in his voice undisguisable.

Neither of you comments on the fact that _Accio_ would do quite nicely at the moment, and you escape the shed without blatantly flashing the bulge in your jeans at him. You try to spare him the embarrassment of your own scrutiny but don't quite make it out of the building without one last look at the massive dick Harry's apparently had to lug about his whole life. But with one last glimpse of it, you turn quickly, scratch the back of your neck to quell the tingling sensation up your spine, and leave.

~

The rest of the evening is pretty uneventful if judged against the hand-between-the-thighs incident. He teaches you about changing the oil: cleaning the sprocket, moving the hoses, protecting the header with newspaper. You both get a kick out of the fact that he uses the _Prophet's_ society page to catch the sludge. 

He doesn't seem inclined to try to start the motorcycle up once you've finished, though, and you feel like you've pushed him far enough for one night. For a week. For the year. So you don't make the suggestion when he indicates it's time to close up shop for the night.

"It's late," he observes as you walk back to the house. 

"Think I'll shower before bed, though," you say, the smell of motor oil sticking to your clothes and skin. 

"Sure," he says, turning his face up to the night breeze momentarily. In the kitchen, he turns toward the tea kettle and calls without looking at you, "I'll see you in the morning then."

"Right," you say. "Sleep tight."

"Yeah, you too." He clears his throat, and you climb the stairs to the sound of water filling the kettle for tea and Harry's relentless puttering.

Inside the bathroom you strip while the water steams up the room. You jerk off straight away, of course. You almost always do. It's utilitarian and necessary, and once you come, you take your time washing off the grit and grime. You wash every inch of your body, your hair twice, and only emerge once you feel scrubbed to a shine and relaxed enough to sleep. 

You towel-dry your hair and comb your fingers through it and then sling the towel around your hips, making your way down the hall to your room and wondering if Harry will want to try the bike out tomorrow, if he'd let you ride it.

"This is one of my favourites." Harry's voice inside the near-dark of the room startles you. Blinking, you find his shadowed silhouette over by the side of your bed as he adjusts a picture frame there. "I was going to keep it in my room, but…"

You can just make out that it's the shot he took of you leaning against his bike. Even in the too-dim light, you can make out your own smirk, the relaxed lean, your ankles crossed, and it looks to you like an open proposition. _Come and get me, Harry._ Maybe it was.

Harry turns and sees you in your towel, still damp. His lips part. And then he frowns slightly. You look down at yourself and realise you've forgotten the morphing you've done since you arrived here… the one that covers up your many tattoos. You don't know why you've been hiding them from Harry. It's certainly not that you _want_ for him to not know that you're a grown-up now, that you're a man rather than a boy. There was just something that first day that made you do it, some invisible force exerting itself on you and prompting you to change, just a little, just enough, not to disrupt, too soon, his former view of you.

You feel, belatedly, that it was an unfair manipulation… that you should have just shown yourself to him from the start. And for the most part you did. It was maybe the guilt of knowing the full reason you'd come to stay with him in the first place – that lingering whisper of the conversation with Victoire:

_"You're never going to get what you want."_

_"Watch me."_

Maybe you wanted to preserve a little of what Harry knew of you, to show him you were the same person still.

But Harry's frown lessens now as he slowly walks toward you. You fight the urge to back away, which is ludicrous considering you've spent a good deal of your time fantasising about getting closer to this man.

"Since when?" Harry asks, gaze travelling over the phoenix covering your left shoulder, the Deathly Hallows symbol over your heart, and then moving to the long-stemmed black rose down the right side of your neck.

You shrug, though the last thing you feel is nonchalant. Your heart gallops through your chest like a mustang. Harry comes closer, tilting his head to observe the neck tattoo.

"I got them at different times," you tell him.

"Hm. Which was the first?"

"The one on my… chest. This one." You touch it, and Harry's gaze follows your fingertip.

"Mm," he says. "How old were you?"

"Uh, sixteen."

He lifts a brow.

"Hogsmeade trip."

This wins you a quirked smile, and then Harry proceeds to circle you, now able to see the two on your back. Fine hairs stand up all over your body under his regard. He gives a faint laugh. "A serpent? Really?"

"The Hat almost put me in Slytherin," you admit to him.

"Me too."

"Seriously?" You turn your head but can't see him.

"Seriously." He sounds even closer, like any moment you may feel his breath on your skin. It comes as a shock, then, to feel, instead, his fingers. 

They ghost over your left shoulder blade wonderingly, and you gulp, realising he's found the pride flag waving there.

His voice dips lower. "When was this one?"

You lick dry lips. "Eighteenth birthday."

"Was that before or after you came out?"

Your heart stops. "A-After. A few months after." You feel yourself wanting to tremble from his touch and ball your hands into fists momentarily to quell the sensation. It's that or fall irrevocably into it.

"Teddy," he says.

"Y-yes?"

Harry steps around in front of you again, wraps his hand around the back of your neck, and he kisses you.

Your lips part on a gasp, but there's no hesitancy in him; his tongue slips into your mouth, and you groan, hands seeking, gripping, pulling on his hips to get him closer. He changes the fit of your mouths, his hand sliding down your chest, thumb finding your nipple and rubbing over it. The sound you make into his mouth is uncomfortably raw and you realise you've never gone so hard so fast in your life, which is saying something, as your dick tries to poke its way out of the towel. 

Harry's other hand sinks into your hair and tightens, even as the hand on your chest descends, slower than you need it to, finally finding the place where your towel is folded in on itself and giving a tug. It drops into a pool at your feet, and your lips gasp away from his.

He dips his chin to look down your body, gaze taking in your towering erection. As he looks at you, the head of your cock pushes eagerly up out of the foreskin further. Merlin, just from him looking. You feel like you could come on the spot. But then he's meeting your eyes, his own dark and dilated, as though he's the one that hungers – Harry hungers for _you_ – and so you lean forward and open his lips under your own again, seek his tongue, plunge yours into his mouth. 

Then he's yanking you in by the hips, mashing your cock up against his still-clothed body. He's wrapping his arms around you, his warm hands pressed to your back and moulding you to him. You shiver as your nakedness collides with the soft cotton of his shirt, the rough rub of his jeans.

You grip his arms and can't help thrusting, just a little, just a few times, a whimper escaping your throat. You realise you can still smell the machine on him, the slight brandy spice under the sweet tea on his breath. You tug at his shirt and break the kiss to pull it over his head. He rips his glasses off and flings them aside without regard. He pulls your hair a little and opens his mouth against the curve of your neck, tongue lapping the dark ink, teeth sinking a slow, wet bite on the muscle.

And you thought you'd have to coax him, beg him, placate his guilt.

Instead, he lets you unfasten his jeans and push them down. It's only when you thrust your hand into his pants to find his cock that he stops you, gripping your wrist and pulling your hand free. "Wait," he says.

Your heart plummets, but you freeze, cock throbbing where it's pressed up against him.

"We can't go back," he says. "Not after this."

You huff a mirthless laugh and peer deep into his flashing green eyes. "Harry, I was never there."

He looks at you, assessing quickly, before his gaze fixates on your mouth. Something hard and unyielding passes over his features, flexes his jaw, and then he's kissing you, rougher than before, deeper, and he's grabbing the globes of your arse, growling into your mouth as he hauls you in, squeezing hard. You kiss him back and manage to shove his pants down with his jeans so that they cling just below his hips. You can't miss this and so you pull out of the kiss, breathless, to look down at his cock. 

And maybe if it weren't so heavy, it would stand all the way up; he's certainly hard enough for that to be the case. But because of its size, Harry's cock, instead, leans out more, hanging and bobbing under its own weight as you gaze at it.

"Merlin," you breathe, and you glance up to check with him silently first before you lay your hand under the girth and experimentally curl your fingers around him.

Harry sips in a quick inhale at your touch. As you close your hand and make a fist, your fingers can't quite meet your thumb. You could easily correct that with a bit of intention, but not everybody thinks extra long fingers are anything but extraordinarily creepy. Besides, you rather like it… that Harry's cock more than fills your hand. You could never tell him this because you fear he'd bolt at the barest hint of the idea, but it makes you feel just slightly diminutive in his presence, just the tiniest bit trepidatious and more than a little turned on by the difference. It makes you aware of him in a way you thought you already were. But it's something altogether different to dream about Harry's cock, about holding him in your hand, about pleasing him, and now actually doing it and feeling the warmth and unbearable softness of his skin, covering the powerful heft of him as he throbs against the grip of your fingers, the rhythmic pulse like a subdued threat.

You've never been with anybody like him – not anybody who already means so much to you, who's got seventeen years on you – and the rush of feeling, being with him now, is like nothing you've ever experienced. You want to weep from the guileless joy of it.

You swallow, staring at Harry's dick, and give a slow tug, sliding your hand to the head, massaging it gently, and then descending, fingers and thumb parting ways on the journey back down to the root.

He meets your gaze then, breath heavy and strong. It hits you that Harry's a man. A _man_. He's _Harry_. It sends a jolt of magic buzzing through you, settling in your bones, in your chest: a feeling of utter rightness you've never even been able to glimpse before. And now it's everything, surrounding you, standing right in front of you, and before you know it, you're sinking to your knees before him.

"Teddy, I—" he starts, but as you lean forward and swirl your tongue around the slick head of his cock, his eyes flutter closed and whatever he might have said instead turns to, "Oh God."

You hum appreciatively at his taste, salty with sweat, a bead of bitter pre-come kissed from the tip of his cock and into your mouth. You meet your mouth with your squeezing hand and then let your lips stretch wide to take the girth of just the first couple of inches.

"Teddy, wait," he gasps, and for a moment you assume it's because he thinks he's about to come. But when you tilt your face up and look at him, it's concern that you find there, furrowing his brow. He cups your cheek. "You can't," he says. "Can you?"

And the smile dawning on your lips is unstoppable, slightly predatory probably. He seems to have forgotten who you are, after all. 

"Oh Harry."

You kiss the tip of his cock tenderly, opening your lips and tonguing under the crown. And then you relax everything, let the subtle changes happen, and you sink down, all the way down, slowly taking him to the root until the dark pubic hair around the base of his massive cock tickles your face.

Harry grabs quickly for the desk beside your bed. He grips your hair in his other hand. He's gasping for breath for a moment while ironically your own breathing stays calm and deep. You glance up to see his mouth open, the tension in his face… It's like no one's ever done this to him before.

Merlin, no one's ever done this to him before.

Heart pounding through the whole of your body, you pull off just as slowly, cradling under the shaft with your tongue until it's just the head in your mouth while you lick and suck, and above you he's watching, gasping, his eyes dazed and gleaming.

He seems to catch himself, his fist loosening in the strands of your hair. He cups your cheek instead, thumb moving softly over the cheekbone while you suck him. "Do that again," he requests, and you let a low laugh vibrate around his cock before you take him back into your throat, his hand slipping around to cradle your skull. You stay deep now, and when he starts to rock into you, you groan to encourage it. The warm pressure of his hand increases, and Harry thrusts his hips, gently fucking your face. It's all you can do not to touch yourself. Two firm strokes and you'd be gone.

His head drops back momentarily. He groans your name, and your cock jerks up against your belly at the sound of it. Harry grits his teeth, hips rolling, rolling. He looks down at you, and you slip back off him and lick your swollen lips, hand giving lazy tugs on his cock. "Do you want to come like this? In my mouth?" you add because you think he might like that – and from the way he shudders, you're sure you're right.

"No," he says. He blinks down at you. "Yes. Fuck yes, of course I do."

You lean forward and nuzzle his slippery cock. "But not right now," you guess. He strokes your face, and you open your eyes to gaze up at him. "You want something else right now. Don't you?"

He frowns, small vestiges of his guilt becoming visible. You rise from the floor without needing another word from him, without making him say it. You crawl into your bed and lie back, lifting your arms to grip the headboard and letting your legs fall open.

"Well?" you ask. "Do you need me to beg you to fuck me, Harry?"

For a split second you think his reply might very well be 'yes', judging by his slight hesitation. But then he's taking down his jeans and pants the rest of the way, ripping shoes off, socks, and you quickly roll over to grab your lube from the nightstand drawer. When you roll onto your back again, it's to find Harry climbing onto the bed, over you, his hairy legs parting yours still further, the bike's metallic perfume clinging to him. He presses you back into the pillows, a force of nature.

You swallow, bite your lip, and then he's kissing you again. You scramble to get the jar unscrewed while his tongue pushes tenderly into your mouth. When you slide your oil-slick hand down his cock, Harry gasps a moan into your mouth. He lifts his lips to murmur, "Fingers."

"Don't need it." Your hand moves up and down his big cock.

"And what if I want to?"

All you want is him fucking you. "Next time."

Something flits over his face, maybe the realisation that you, at least, expect a next time – that this isn't the first and last of something all in one.

"You're sure?" he asks.

In reply, you scoot down the bed and hike a leg over his shoulder. He nearly growls, taking your other leg and hauling it up as well, until both are in place and you're exposed and ready for him to push inside.

Harry reaches between his legs, his hand disappearing there, the muscles in his forearm standing out under the dark hair. The sight makes you shiver. He's going to do it. He's going to fuck you. This is Harry, and he's doing it. You feel at once so ready and so nervous. Your heart's beating so fast, and you let yourself be calmed by his warm body looming over you, the scent of his cooled sweat, salty on his skin.

He aims his cock, and the wide head nudges your arsehole. You concentrate a little magic there and loosen yourself only enough that he'll be able to fit it snugly inside. His other arm is strong where he's holding himself up over you.

You expect him to check with you one last unnecessary time, so you gasp audibly to feel his cock beginning to breach you instead. One hand flies from the headboard to where his neck and shoulder meet, grabbing him there, your gaze meeting his. He slides in further, not even halfway, you don't think, and he's stretching you to your current limits – which you could modify, but something in you doesn't want to… wants, instead, to feel him splitting you open, wants it to ache once he's buried himself inside you.

"Are you alright?" he asks.

You nod furiously, slide your hand up the back of his neck. "Yeah, keep going."

Harry gives a slow thrust of his hips forward, sinking a couple more thick inches inside, and you groan, turning your head on the pillow and panting.

"Still okay?"

"Fuck yes," you sigh. Your body naturally adjusts to accommodate him now, no morphing necessary, and you feel how he slips in further without much effort. 

He makes a noise like nothing you've ever heard, the quiet lament of someone about to lose themselves. "This is…" he stammers and then stops.

"Yeah?" Your hand sifting up into his hair and stroking.

He meets your gaze meaningfully. "This is the farthest I've ever gotten."

The confession squeezes around your heart for a moment. "Harry…"

He blinks down at you, so powerful and so vulnerable. If you didn't need him to start fucking you soon, you'd take the next hour and simply kiss him. You'd gladly kiss him the rest of the night.

He starts to pull out.

"Wait." You hand goes back to his shoulder, clamping down. "Keep going."

He frowns. "I… don't want to…"

"Harry." You press into his back a little with your heel. "Keep going."

He's still frowning, still uncertain, but he readjusts his arms, pushing your legs up a bit further, and then he tenses his arse and pushes.

"Oh God," you sigh, taking a little more than he gave you before. "Give me all of it, Harry."

He thrusts, grunting some, and your mouth falls open on the exquisite pressure of his cock inside you. 

"Teddy," he whispers.

"Do it."

With a grunt that turns groan, he plunges the rest of the way inside. 

"Oh _fuck_ ," you cry out as Harry shudders over you.

You're gasping, panting, so full, so _full_ , and yet even the pain itself is erotic to you, the extent to which he's a part of you, buried in you. A tear slips from the corner of your eye and stains the pillow.

"Teddy." The concern aching in his voice is undercut only slightly by the way he's having to grit his teeth.

"Oh God, fuck me," you tell him. "Fuck me, Harry, please."

It must be obvious, how much you need it. That or he needs it just as badly, because what begins as Harry withdrawing and easing back in, with every ragged _yes_ and _fuck_ and _more_ that leaves your lips, becomes harder, faster, less and less careful.

"Harry, fuuuck," comes out whining, and you feel like a slag, but it gets you what you want – Harry slamming it home repeatedly. You grab the slats in the headboard, and Harry readjusts, doing the same, his fists just over yours, and then he's whipping his hips, your arse warm and pliable, the friction igniting your nerve-endings and making you keen, it's so bloody good.

"Harry… coming…" you manage and watch his eyes blink a little wider just before your untouched cock spurts warm come all over your stomach and chest, your balls drawn up tight and prick jerking as Harry fucks it out of you, hot ropes splattering your skin as you scream.

He slows to watch you, still moving in and out fluidly but gazing down at your face, at the way you fall apart for him. He slips in your sweat. Your hands loosen where they were so tight you've probably rubbed blisters. He looks a question at you, and you nod. He starts thrusting harder again, working up to his own climax now that you've had yours. You wrap your hands around his straining forearms and gaze up at the indescribable beauty that is Harry Potter fucking you.

"Fill me up," you coax softly, fingers stroking up and down his arms. "You're going to come so deep inside me, aren't you?"

He growls, going at you faster.

"Your cock feels so good, Harry."

A bitten off whine as he drops his chin to his chest and strives.

You stroke his hair away from his face. "Give it to me." You lean up and kiss his lips once. "Give it all to me." He groans, and you kiss him again. "I'm so bloody in love with y—"

He cries out, obliterating your declaration as he comes hard, and you feel every hot pulse inside you. His hips whip harder and slower, the sweat dripping off him and onto you. His clenched-closed eyes open, and he's looking at you like he can't believe it, like you're not real. 

So you cup his face as his thrusts slow to a stop, his cock still throbbing in you, and you kiss him again, as soft and sweet and slow as the moon crawls over the arc of the sky. 

~

You wake to the sensation of a gentle cleaning charm. "Mm," you grunt, stretching tired limbs that you immediately realise are also quite sore, and colliding with the warm body next to you. You frown a little, because it's not like the version of _Scourgify_ you were taught in school; it's more subtle, a slow and deliberate trail along your body rather than the shocking wave of bright magic you've always known it to be. You crack an eye open to see Harry, propped on an elbow on his side, drawing the tip of his wand over your chest, patiently cleaning you of your own jizz. His wand glows a soft pink as it travels the circumference of the Deathly Hallows symbol, dropping down then to circle a tightening nipple before trailing down the middle of your chest and making graceful designs on your stomach.

"Hi," you say. 

He smiles. "Hi."

"What time is it?"

Warm magic spreads down over your right hipbone before Harry drags the wand tip just above your pubes and over to the left. You'd fetched a pair of clean pants before falling asleep, and now your dick stirs underneath at the light touches.

He shrugs. "Pretty late."

"We fell asleep," you observe less than astutely.

He smiles. "Yeah."

"Harry," you say, brain coming more awake enough that something dawns on you.

"Hmm?"

You stop yourself because you were going to comment on how infrequently he's used his own magic since you arrived at his house. He's stuck to small, necessary charms and could easily have employed dozens more, significantly further advanced, for everything under the sun. But the last thing you want to do is bring up whatever darkness he's managed to overcome in order to look so comfortable in this moment working an intricate little charm on you.

Instead you observe an equal truth. "You're really good at that."

He hums a soft chuckle as he gazes at the way your cock is pressing against the cotton of your underwear now. He strokes the tip of the wand over the bulge experimentally, and you gasp at the tingling warmth. "Bloody hell."

Harry lifts his calmly inquisitive gaze and watches your face as he begins a tender tapping of the middle of his wand against your hardening cock. A low buzz accompanies each swat, and it has you mewling a little and opening your thighs for him.

"Harry…"

He goes a smidge harder.

"Oh _Jesus_."

"Like that?" he asks, his voice sleep-low and aroused.

You're squirming like a slag, so you feel it's a safe bet he knows just exactly how much you like it. In fact, you wonder how much harder he could go and what that might do to you. He lowers the wand and pats your balls, quicker, playful little flicks, and your dick leaks a large wet stain across the front of your pants embarrassingly.

But Harry doesn't look embarrassed for you. He looks enthralled.

You're only disappointed for a moment when he sets his wand aside. Because then it's his hand slipping down into your pants and squeezing your cock instead. You hump his fist, and he obliges by starting to stroke you off.

"Oh Harry… Oh my God…" The rate at which he's taken you from sleep to 'begging bloody whore for it' is fast even for you, and Harry seems nothing less than enchanted with it, with you. He smiles down on you and then leans forward and captures your lips in a slow, searing kiss.

"Teddy," he says once he's lifted his lips again. "Do you remember that thing you said before?"

You can do no more than whine in response, though you know exactly what he's referring to: that moment before he came, your interrupted confession.

"I'm afraid I might be too," he says.

You gaze up at his face, the bittersweet resignation clouding his eyes for a moment before it begins to melt away, to transform to something that lights him up from the inside. 

You exert enough force to roll him onto his back and straddle him. 

"Make me come," you say, thrusting into his hand. "And then tell me for real."

~

"This is wrong," he says.

"It's not wrong."

Harry sighs. 

"It doesn't feel wrong to me," you tell him.

"The fact that you're just going by feeling is part of what's wrong."

You turn to him and raise your eyebrows defiantly. "Harry, this is going to be good and you know it."

"I know the recipe calls for six ounces of brown sugar, and you've just…" Harry waves at the bowl. "You've literally just been wanding it straight from the package into the batter willy-nilly."

"You did _not_ just say willy-nilly."

He sighs. "I need a beer."

"You need a shag."

He rolls his eyes, but before he turns away from you, you glimpse the telling and oh-so-endearing blush on his cheeks. You may have been going at it for a week straight, but Harry's still rather reluctant to actually talk about the fact that he's shagging you.

"Well, if I've bollocksed it up so badly, what exactly do you want to do about that, Harry?" When he's silent, you set down your wand and step closer to him. "You know who would have both beer _and_ delicious cake?"

He sighs and looks at you, measuring what you've just said pensively.

"Harry, it's not every day you turn forty."

He looks down at the floor, toeing a loose tile rather than simply drawing his wand to fix it.

"We could have a quick fuck first," you offer. "Come on, Harry. You'll feel a year younger after a shag."

"I'll feel older, I promise you."

You slip your fingers under his shirt and onto his stomach. "Not while you're coming."

He snorts a laugh and turns brightened eyes on you. Sometimes they're so green it hurts to look at them.

You stroke his waist and insinuate your fingertips down the back of his pants a little ways, tilting your head to try to reason, ply, beseech him. "They invited you," you remind him.

He nods. "I've just… I don't know how to face them when it's been so long."

"You just do it. And then it won't have been long anymore." You lean in and kiss his whiskered cheek. "They love you, Harry. They won't ever stop loving you. Please let them."

He lifts his hand and cups your cheek. He sighs heavily. "What do we tell them about… this?" 

_This._

You sigh. "I doubt we'll have to actually tell them anything. They'll cotton on. And nobody's going to have a problem with it except Percy and that's because he has a problem with absolutely everything."

Harry frowns.

"Look, if my parents could just take it back, I'm sure they would. 'We hereby rescind the offer for Harry Potter to be our son's godfather,' and poof, no more problem. That _is_ the problem, isn't it?"

You've never actually said it before… have only known it to be the unsayable thing always hanging like a low fog in every room you inhabit together. And now it's out there.

This close you can see his jaw twitching with tension.

"You and I are not related. You didn't raise me. Or is it that I'm not allowed to grow up, become a man, and fuck who I want to fuck?" 

He peers into your eyes now, blinking. "I'm seventeen years older than you."

"And I know for a fact that that is not a problem for either of us." You press close to him, letting him feel just how not-a-problem that is for you. His hands slip onto your lower back. This close you can smell his cologne and it's so fucking masculine and sexy it makes you want to go to your knees and blow him this minute. Everything about him makes you want to be underneath him, held down by him, used and loved and cared for and fucked.

"Beer. _And_ cake," you say instead.

He quirks a smile at you. He rolls his eyes again. "Merlin, alright."

You smile, lean in and give him a quick, hard kiss.

"I have one stipulation," he says.

You tilt your head.

"We're taking the bike."

Your smile turns into a beam.

~

Outside it's nice and cool, the muggy heat having broken under a sopping rain a couple nights before. But this evening, there are only a few clouds strewn over a starry sky. Harry's donned a black leather jacket that is completely unfair in your opinion. Drool collects quickly under your tongue simply watching him stride across the garden.

"Be good," Harry calls to Pearl, who runs over for an ear tousle before she makes for the house, taking full advantage of her new Crup-door to seek interior comforts for the evening.

Harry lights the garage, untarps the bike, and then rolls it out into the garden while you open the gate leading out into the alley behind the house.

"Ready?" he asks, straddling the body in a way that looks practiced and also hot as hell. He guns the bike alive, stomping on the starter pedal twice to wake it. It growls as he pulls the hand clutch a couple times, revving the engine. "Come on," Harry says, and it's all you can do not to melt into a turned on puddle of yourself. Quite literally.

Instead, you walk over and hold onto his shoulders as you sling your leg over the body of the bike behind him. You ease down, snuggling your crotch up tight against his arse (your cock, against Harry's _arse_ ) and wrapping your arms around his middle. Harry guns the engine again before he turns and says over his shoulder, "Hey."

You lean forward to hear.

"I love you."

Your heart flips over on itself. Again not literally, thank Merlin. It only feels that way because Harry has utterly stolen your breath.

You lay your cheek against the cool leather stretched across his back, your hands inching inside his jacket at the front, and Harry maneuvers the bike out of the garden and into the alley, flicking his wand at the gate to close and lock it before holstering it again. And then you're barrelling down the asphalt, becoming a streak of black metal and rubber before the Disillusionment charms take effect, and Harry lifts you into the sky.

 

~end~

**Author's Note:**

> Please show your appreciation for the author here, or on [LIVEJOURNAL!](http://hp-crossgenfest.livejournal.com/49438.html) ♥


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